Bad Religion wins the award for best albums in the years 1988-91.  

1992: New Miserable Experience by The Gin Blossoms.  The first album i ever got.  A 90s classic, still worthy of lots of listens!  

1993: Love Songs For The Retarded by The Queers.  Really the album that brought The Queers from being a silly band that sounded like the Ramones to a silly band the sounded like the ramones and the beach boys playing together.  

1994: Smash by The Offspring. 1994 was a great year for music. Weezer’s blue album, 24 Hour Revenge Therapy by Jawbreaker, Dookie by Green Day, Sixteen Stone by Bush just to name a few important albums.  I pick the Offspring, because Smash just has so much energy and anger and catchiness.  

1995:  Dear You by Jawbreaker  The Best album by one of the best punk bands, with some amazing lyrics. (Rancid’s And Out Come the Wolves and Melancholy and The Infinite Sadness from The Smashing Pumpkins get honorable mention.

1996: Ænima by Tool. Now, I’m not a huge Tool fan, and I’d really like to give this Weezer for Pinkerton or Sublime for the self-titled album, or Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy by The Refreshments or Cake for Fashion Nugget, but I’m going to go out of my comfort zone and pick Tool, because this album is just excellent on so many levels.  The Title Track is probably one of the ten best songs ever recorded.  

1997: Either/Or by Elliott Smith.  There are so many albums to pick, but it’s hard to pick anything else besides Elliott Smith’s best album. Honorable mentions to Clumsy by Our Lady Peace, So Much For The Afterglow by Everclear,  and Third Eye Blind’s Self-titled album.   

1998: Darkest Days by Stabbing Westward.   Once again, an insane amount of excellent albums, like Jets To Brazil”s Orange Rhyming Dictionary and The Queers’ Punk Rock Confidential, but Darkest Days is the most complete rendering of the pain, anxiety, anger, depression, hate, and ultimately nostalgia involved in a break up. The definitive breakup album.   

1999: Straight Ahead–Pennywise  An excellent year for Punk rock.  It’s hard not to pick More Betterness by No Use For A Name, Going Nowhere Fast by The Satanic Surfers or Something To Write Home About by The Get Up Kids. But Pennywise wins with their best album. So political, so fast, so angry, and so fun to sing along to.  

2000:  Rancid (2000) by Rancid  A difficult year to select, as there are a lot of good albums, but nothing truly great.  The Art of Drowing by AFI, Pennybridge Pioneers by Millencolin and Left and Leaving by The Weakerthans are all very good. Rancid’s best album wins the award.   

2001: Idle Will Kill by Osker.   I’d like to pick 5 albums for this year.  But Osker’s masterpiece wins.  Other excellent albums are: From Here To Infirmary by Alkaline Trio, Rockin The Suburbs by Ben Folds, The Places You Have Come to Fear The Most by Dashboard Confessional, The Unraveling by Rise Against and Full Collapse by Thursday.  

2002: Apathy and Exhaustion by the Lawrence Arms   Maybe my favorite punk album of all time.  Also,  Perfecting loneliness by Jets To Brazil, Hard Rock Bottom by No Use For A Name, and Tell All Your Friends by Taking Back Sunday.  All of these could win.  

2003: Reconstruction Site by The Weakerthans.   In a year full of excellent albums, this one stands out with a mix of folk, punk, and literary wit.  Honorable mentions: Good Mourning by Alkaline Trio, Seven’s Travels by Atmosphere, Waking The Fallen by Avenged Sevenfold,  The Greatest Story Ever Told by The Lawrence Arms, Forty Hour Train Back To Penn by The Movielife, Give Up by The Postal Service, Revolutions per Minute by Rise Against, When Broken is Easily Fixed by Silverstein.  

2004: A Grand Don’t Come For Free by The Streets    A British hip-hop concept album.  Unbeatable.  Other great albums from the year: The Curse by Atreyu,  Dorkrockcorkrod by The Ergs, Forget What You Know by Midtown, Lock-Sport-Krock by Nikola Sarcevic, and mmhmmm by Relient K   

2005: Bayside by Bayside.  An easier year to pick.  Honorable Mentions: Picaresque by The Decemberists, I Am The Avalanche by I Am The Avalanche.   

2006: Twelve Small Steps, One Giant Disappointment by Bad Astronaut,  An incredibly sad album, much of which is based on the suicide of the bands drummer while they were recording the album.  Honorable Mentions: Acoustic by Bayside, The Great Burrito Extortion Case by Bowling For Soup, The Poison by Bullet For My Valentine, Get Evens by The Evens, and Oh! Calcutta! by The Lawrence Arms.   

2007: Sleep is For The Week by Frank Turner and  Four One Five Two by Sundowner .   Impossible to choose between these two excellent albums.  Honorable Mention: Upstairs/Downstairs by The Ergs.

Frank Turner:

And Sundowner: 

2008: Love Ire and Song by Frank Turner.    Frank Turner wins it all this time.  Honorable Mentions: Shudder by Bayside, Suicide Season by Bring Me The Horizon, Etched In Blood by The Dreaming, and Last Stop: Crappy Town by Reggie and The Full Effect.    (A very emotional song about a friend dying of cancer and dealing with grief).

2009:  Can’t Maintain by Andrew Jackson Jihad.  Honorable Mentions:  Common Dreads by Enter Shikari, Fists Out of Sockets by The Riot Before, Common Existence by Thursday.  

2010: The Upsides by The Wonder Years.  This is the album that made pop-punk worthwhile again.  Honorable Mentions: What Separates Me From You by A Day To Remember, Real Talk by Man Overboard. Tigers Jaw by Tigers Jaw, Twelve Song Program by Tony Sly.   

2011: Avalanche United by I Am The Avalanche. Loud, Catchy, Angry, and full of excellent lyrics, this album deserves my album of the year.  Honorable Mentions: Knife Man by Andrew Jackson Jihad, Killing Time by Bayside, Delusions by Elway, Sad Bear by Tony Sly, Suburbia, I Given You All And Now I’m Nothing by The Wonder Years.   

Thank You Friends!  This was fun!!!

Pixie Stix.  First love.  It’s beautiful, it’s fleeting, it’s full of empty calories that leave you hungry for more, but sick to your stomach.  You remember it for the rest of your life but can’t ever go back.

Tiramisu.  Sweetness soaked in alcohol. Doesn’t last very long.  Popular among college students.

Sweet Potato Donuts.   Once you’re 25 or older, love stories usually start on a depressing note.  One character is a loner and the other is a jerk who realizes they need to change their ways.  They gradually fall in love, kiss, then have a huge falling out over a small misunderstanding.  After months apart (during which both protagonists mope around), one of them shows up as the music swells, some sickeningly sentimental gift with them, showing their true love they’ve changed.  Kisses happen.  Sometimes marriage and kids.  But then the sweetness can turn sour, as fermentation happens.

Fried Pickles.   After the lovers have been soaked in the brine of cohabitation for long enough, they’re at the point where the only way they can make it through the day is if they’re medicated to the point where they sometimes have problems remembering their names, their jobs, and what time their kids get out of lacrosse and ballet practice.

Liver and Onions.  Daily tasks become torture.  Nothing seems to taste or feel the way it once did.  You cry, but can’t explain why. Your medications stop working.

Gruel.   You are a lump made up of smaller lumps made up of smaller lumps, etc. You would taste better with salt or cheese, but your cholesterol and blood pressure are too high for either to be a part of your diet. You are asleep by8pm and sleep in a separate bedroom from your spouse; possible a different house, different city, different country.

Quinoa.   Say that fifteen times in a row.  Keen-woh.  Pretty soon you’re saying Woh-keen who-keen, and someone who overhears thinking you’re just mumbling “walking, walking,” to yourself.  They take your advice and keep walking, as far away from you as possible, until you’re alone on a sidewalk, watching the mass exodus of humanity.  You begin to crave pixie stix.

Some of our favorite Voyages:

#1: Jason and The Argonauts.  A fresh Jason, aboard ship, with his trusty argonauts and a medium Nectar.

#2  The Double Jason With Golden Fleece: Two Jasons, aboard ship, clutching two golden fleeces victoriously, along with their loyal argonauts and a medium Nectar.

We hope to sail with you soon!

Bon Voyage!

1. Audio Geography–Sundowner

2. Joe Strummer–Cowboy Mouth

3. Logan Circle: A New Hope–The Wonder Years

4.Kiss The Bottle– Brendan Kelly (The orignal version, by Jawbreaker, is great too!)

5. The Way I Am–Ingrid Michaelson

6. One Giant Disappointment–Bad Astronaut

7. I Can’t Go On–Bayside

8. A Wishful Puppeteer–The Lawrence Arms

9. New Fool–Nikola Sarcevic

10. Good Fashion–Sage Francis

11. All Day and All of the Night–The Kinks

12. Romantic Fatigue–Frank Turner

13. Why–Secondhand Serenade

14. Four Josey–I Tried To Save The World Once

15. Candles–Hey Mondays

16. Ursula Finally Has Tits–the Queers

Watership Downs (boring) mixed with Early Hitchcock (amazing) mixed with me being silly (hilarious, in my own wonderful opinion…).

A good idea?

Stay tuned…

Lady Gaga felt bitchy.  Her hair was less than perfect, Alejandro hadn’t called her, and her meat dress was making her seem, well, meaty.  Did she need to lose weight?  She felt like a monster.  No, bitch, she thought to herself, you are making meat fab again. No more of this fucking vegetarianism. Lady Gaga don’t wear no broccoli dress, bitch.  She finally decided she looked fierce. But, she thought, I’d be so much fiercer if Alejandro would call me back.  Their romance hadn’t been the best, but she couldn’t bring herself to throw him away.  He still called her Stefani, unlike everyone else, who, impressed by her fame, called her by her stage name.   But Alejandro would have to wait.  She was due to be on stage in two minutes, and she needed to put on her poker face. No one could see the true feelings inside this bitch.

Chapter 2:

She walked out on stage and watched as her fan’s went batshit. She was in a monster ballroom, but out of all her fans, she noticed a tall, red-haired girl in the front row, yelling, “you are my bitch, Gaga” at the top of her lungs.  The red-haired girl was wearing Daisy-dukes, Lady Gaga noticed.  ”You’re my bitch too, Daisy,” she responded to the girl.  Maybe Daisy-dukes were the new fierce fab fashion. Meat was so yesterday, bitch.  Gaga was wearing fucking daisy dukes next show. She stared the red-haired girl in the eyes and began to sing.  They were having a special moment.  A very special moment, bitch.

“Dunno, mate.”

“Perhaps you should sleep more often”.

Friends telling me not to believe my dreams.    I know the dream isn’t true. But I can’t hold back an irrational craving for eggs.  Eggs cooked any possible way. Huevos rancheros, eggs Benedict, a country omelet suffocating under pounds of cheese, a quiche?

I suppose you haven’t invaded my dreams.  But the eggs have.

Introduction by Davis Phillips, Visiting Writer of Distinction, Yale University

Copyright of Greenfield Literary Publications, 2009.

16123 7^th Avenue Suite 742, New York, NY 10013

Table of Contents

Page 3.        Introduction by Davis Phillips

Page 4.        Rebecca’s Death by Byron Westfield

Page  7        Jenny by Melissa Carragher

Page 10       Big Sleeping by Jacob Greenweiss

Page  11      Flipping Your Hair by Mason Franks

Page   13      A Metafictive Perfumed Garden by Thomas McGrath

INTRODUCTION

When J. Rutherford Kensington asked me to write the introduction for this collection, I was more honored than any other time in my life, except possibly when Marissa Sergeant took off her shirt for me in the eleventh grade, but then, my early sexual life has little to do with what you are about to read.

These stories will make you laugh, cry, scream in anger, and possibly commit suicide. They are that affecting. I’m being paid one thousand dollars for this introduction, no matter how long it is, or what I write. Therefore, I could, with a clear conscience and no fear of being fired, write I STILL LOVE YOU MARISSA SERGEANT in all caps and still get every cent of my money. I wonder if Marissa still thinks of me. I’m drunk right now and my waitress is bringing me a triple bourbon and coke, light on the coke. I may be writing this on a napkin.  So please, enjoy the stories, and if you know Marissa Sergeant’s current location or phone number, don’t hesitate to contact me at dphils@yale.edu.   Cheers and happy reading.

May 24, 2009

Rebecca’s Death

Byron Westfield

Rebecca doesn’t know why she died.  She tends to think about death a lot, mostly because I make her.  I don’t try to make her, but she says my existence is enough to turn all her thoughts toward death.  She also says I’m like an author writing her into a story of misery and pain, the kind where she ends up jumping in front of a train and allowing a mass of phallic metal traveling at three-hundred miles-per-hour to dismember her in the ultimate act of female subservience.   She says all men are like penis-obsessed trains and women are tied down to the tracks.  I disagree with her, though.  I am not all that obsessed with my penis, I travel closer to five miles-per-hour and I have no interest in dismembering her. Not that it matters anymore.  She didn’t die jumping in front of a train.  She knows that, at least. I don’t know how she died either. I never knew her until after she died, but now she follows me everywhere.  I’ve tried to be as polite as possible, but no matter how nice and sweet and accommodating I am, I’m still a train intent on destroying her.  I ask her why she stays with me.

“Sometimes I enjoy the destruction,” she says.  “Dreams of dismemberment can be kind of fun now and then. And, dreams are all I have left.”

“You killed me,” she says one day during lunch.  We’re at our usual lunch spot, a café with cheap coffees and bagels that Rebecca says would bring her back to life, if only she could eat them.  I smile, like I think she’s being funny, but her expression is of the utmost seriousness.

“Maybe you didn’t kill me intentionally,” she says, “but through your actions, or the lack thereof, I died and my blood is on your hands.  You’ll never be able to wash it off.”

“Not even with really expensive soap?” I ask.  She doesn’t smile.  Those who have died do not engage in mirth-related activities, I suppose, especially with the person who supposedly killed them.  I almost ask her if she’s having her period or has missed a period, but then I remember she can’t have those anymore.  I’m with her so much, she almost feels like my girlfriend.

“I’m talking about psychological blood,” she says. “I’m pretty sure I died a bloodless death.” She seems a little disappointed in me, like she expects me to understand her point of view.  I’d love to understand what she’s talking about, but, alas, I’m don’t possess a piercing knowledge of being dead, and so instead I sip my coffee and try to look sympathetic.  She tells me I’m pretty useless, and she’s right.  She says she has to find more details.  In her position, I think I’d rather stay ignorant about such things, but she’s adamant, so I graciously offer to help her.  She glares at me, the image of superiority.  She thanks me for my offer, says she doesn’t need my help at all, but that I’m welcome to accompany her on her quest.  Ah, questing.  I feel like I’m in elementary school again.  I tell her this, and she hits me in the ribcage. Dead people can still punch relatively hard.

“Ouch,” I say.  “You know, Becky, for an impenetrable steel train intent on destruction, my ribs feel pretty tender.”  Once again, she fails to find any humor in my comment. Usually she doesn’t mind when I call her Becky, but I guess her current state of mind calls for extreme measures of unfamiliarity.

“My name is Rebecca,” she says.  “You of all people should know.  Now shut up.”

She punches me again, then says having sex would help—if it were possible.  I’m ashamed to admit that this makes me a little aroused. She’s still very pretty with a great tan, considering she’s dead. Her brown hair kills me, it looks so soft.

“I always feel the most clairvoyant after an orgasm,” she says. “Or a bagel.”  She suggests I masturbate while eating a bagel but my burgeoning erection has mysterious disappeared. I blame the mention of bagels. Once again she calls me useless. I ask her is she’s able to take her clothes off—a tight black sweater and skinny jeans. I’m not sure if that’s what she died in or not. She changes clothes now and then, but never in my view.

“I think I’ll just watch TV,” she says. “Impotence is one of my biggest pet peeves.”

I’ve never felt more alone than right now.

“You know,” I say, “sometimes I wish you were still alive.”

She glares at me.

She says, “You know, sometimes I wish someone else had killed me.”

Jenny

Melanie Carragher

Jenny and Rick have been together three years, though for Jenny it seems more like sixty.  Everyday, she wakes up at 6:15 in order to make it to work by seven, while Rick stays in bed until he feels like getting up.  At first his unemployment was kind of cute, but not anymore.  Jenny has tried to break up with him three times already, but each time she lost her nerve.  Rick has no idea about any of this.  Jenny is beginning to hate herself.
“No, I’m not,” Jenny says. “I feel perfectly fine about myself.”
Jenny has considered suicide more than once, but, like with breaking up with Rick, she is also afraid of that.
“This is complete bullshit!  I’ve never even thought about killing myself.”
Jenny lies to herself.  Jenny lies to everyone.
Rick wonders who Jenny is talking to.
“Jenny, what the fuck, man?  I’m trying to sleep.”
Rick calls Jenny “man” ad naseum, something which has caused Jenny to question her sexuality.  She wonders if maybe in another life she was a man and Rick was a woman.  Sometimes she fantasizes about dressing Rick up in women’s clothing.
“Honey,” she says. “Would you put on one of my dresses?  Just to see how it feels?”

“Sure,” Rick says.  “I was hoping you’d ask that.  I try on your clothes all the time when you’re gone.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jenny says. “I did not just say that.”  She looks around the room, but sees nothing. “Who are you?”

You’re not supposed to know I’m here, Jenny.  You’re not supposed to hear me.
“Dude, man, come on,” Rick says.
“Oh, shut up,” Jenny says.
Jenny has a violent temper.  Many of her friends consider her quite the bitch.
“They do?”
Yes, they do.  If Jenny weren’t so caught up in her own affairs, if she stopped being so selfish, maybe she would realize the pain others feel.
“This is such bullshit,” Jenny says.
Poor deluded Jenny.

“I’m not deluded.”

Then why do you stay this way, stuck in a life you find boring?  If that’s not delusion, I’m not sure what is.

“You’re just a stupid narrator.  You’re not supposed to be intelligent.  You just tell the story.  Shut up.”

But you are the character.  I create you. You are mine to love or hate, kill or let live.

“If you’re trying to scare me, you’re not doing a good job.”

“We’ll you doing a great job of scaring me,” Rick says.

“Shut up, Rick,” Jenny says.

Rick suddenly has a heart attack.  Jenny looks at him, wondering if she should cry.  What frail creatures we are, she thinks.

“That’s not what I’m thinking.  I’m thinking you’re psychotic. Rick is dead!”

He was annoying.  And like I said, I have the power of life and death over my characters.

“What are you going to do, kill me next?”

No, no, Jenny.  You have nothing to fear.

“As long as I don’t annoy you.”

Yes, I suppose.  One thing that really annoys me are questions, especially when asked in a disrespectful tone.

“What are you, my father? Stay the fuck out of my life.”

Jenny looks wistfully at Rick.  Suddenly she feels her own heart surge.

“Hey,” she screams. “I’m healthy!  I’m vegan!  I eat 850 calories a day, I can’t die of a heart attack.”

Sorry, Jenny.

Goodbye.

Big Sleeping

Jacob Greenweiss

The look of a bookstore girl in a 40s movie, watching the hero walking out into the rain, most likely never to return.  The bookstore girl wears glasses and has her hair put up in a severe bun, but after a few snappy verbal interchanges, the glasses are gone, her hair is down, and they’re kissing, pressing their faces against each other so hard it must hurt.  No pleasure in closed mouth lip-smashing.

Brandy on the bookcase, two glasses, ice melting. They still smash.  “I liked that, but you’re not trying too hard, are you?” the bookstore girl says.  Pulled in again. Smashing. “It’s better when you help.” That’s Lauren Bacall, To Have and Have Not. Wrong Film.  Everything swirls in beautiful indecision. There are no titles.  No one knows who the book store girl is. Was.

“Do you have a first edition?”

“Of what?”

“Of you. You’re a dream, angel.”

“Thanks, Charlie.”

“That isn’t my name.”

“Well, Angel isn’t mine.”

None of these lines exist.

It always rains outside.

Flipping Your Hair

Mason Franks

Well, ya know, I get well leery when a geezer gets hard with me.  It’s an invasion of my fuckin privacy, see. I’s just trying to get a peek at the football, and he was up in my face tellin me he shagged my lamb the night before.  Geezer couldn’t shag his own mum. Had zits all up and down his neck, he did. But he was all like, “she was sqealin for it mate” and nobody shags my bird but me, so I had to stare the geezer down in his cunt face, watching to make sure the fit girl at the bar was watching me as I laid him a good one in his fuckin nose. Then the cunt decided to bleed on me so I may have kicked him in the face and stomach a few times just to make sure he remembered not to pull my girlfriend again. Saw the fit girl flipping her hair and chatting with her friend, looking shaggable as fuckin hell.  Then the barman was like, “Oi, take this shit outside my pub,” so I fucked off outta there, leavin the cunt to bleed and maybe die on the floor. I hoped the fit girl might follow me, so I waited outside for a bit, but nothin. Shit, right?  I woulda read her some of my poetry. Don’t get acting like I’m a prancy fag cause I write poems. Mine’s street shit, ya know? None of your love and roses and shit. Bloke told me rhythm isn’t poetry anymore and rhymes is nothing but I fucked him up for that.  Right, so no fit girl, no shot at pulling her.  So I just walked myself back to my gaff and told my wife to get outta the place, and go whore herself out in Birmingham or some shit place. She yelled a bit but I was reciting my poetry in my mind so I didn’t hear nothing. Finally she threw on her coat and said she was goin out, probably to find the bastard I fucked up. I wondered how the sex’d be with him bleedin everywhere. I decided maybe I’d write a poem bout that. Dreams was good that night.

A Metafictive Perfumed Garden

Thomas McGrath

When writing a sex scene, you can’t be too modest.  No lovers kissing behind closed doors shit.   You don’t want to sound like you’re a blushing Victorian or something.  You’re in the twenty-first century for chrissake. Every day of your life you hear and see so much shit you’re jaded beyond belief.  Instead of a heart, you’ve got a callous. You’re beyond feelings.  You glare at puppies, even.  And you sure as hell better not ever end a scene with an embrace and then start the next paragraph with “afterwards,” leaving what happened to the readers imaginations.  Readers don’t have imaginations.  You have to get grimy and gritty and as realistic as possible, without sounding pornographic.  Your readers aren’t supposed to be titillated by the sex scenes—we’re not harlequin romance novelists here, are we?—so you have to sound as detached as possible. Your characters are fucking. You don’t care. You don’t really know who they are anyway. And please, no characters-talking-while-copulating, okay?  ”Fuck me, fuck me,” just sounds so stupid.  No one says that. Also, no “making love” or “giving pleasure”.  You’re not writing a sexy sex scene.  It’s realistic.  It’s high brow.  Well, not too high brow.

He reamed her. That’s a good sentence.  No one can accuse you of romanticizing anything there.  Let’s continue:

He reamed her.

She cried out.

“God,” she said.

“Christ,” he said.

The reaming continued.  The screaming continued.

That’s not a bad scene. You have the basic elements at least.  Maybe using “he” and “she” makes things too personal though. Let’s try something else:

Character A fucks Character B.

Character A enjoys it.

Character B wants it to end.

Character C walks into the room, drinking a beer.

Character C says, “Mind if I join?”

Character A and Character B scream, “No!” at Character C, who leaves the room in tears.

(When character C arrives, and suggests a threesome, things start getting a little pornographic.  You want to avoid that.  Try something that seems less like a fantasy.)

Character A straddles Character B in the bright, sickeningly white glare of the fluorescent lights, the grime and sweat of their bodies mixing as they crush together animalistically.  They grunt and moan and roll on the shit-brown carpet, gravelly dirt sticking to them as they move.  Outside the sun goes behind the skyscrapers, but still they screw in the harsh whiteness, like laboratory rats moving down a maze toward swinging turbines and certain death.  More grunting, more moaning. Gruntingmoaningsexpainallisemptiness. Character A’s back arches and then loosens as they collapse into a worthless heap.  The lights go out above them.  Darkness, the color of death.

Yes, that’s a good scene.  No titillation there, unless you have some seriously screwed up fetish-mongering readers.  Make everything as realistic and ugly as possible, and you’ll succeed every time.

I hope you’ve taken this advice to heart.  If not, perhaps you should go back to Victorian England and cry in your tea. That’s what Character C is doing right now.

About The Authors

Byron Westfield has been dead for eleven years. A tragic train accident took his life.  He lives in Brooklyn, in Salinger-esque conditions, producing only six pages each year for public consumption. Rumors abound that he has written a three thousand page manifesto, purported to be the seminal work on life after death. Alas, such claims are unsubstantiated as of yet. We can only hope they are true.

Melanie Carragher is a writer of short fiction. This is her first published work. She does not live in Brooklyn, but keeps an apartment there for the sake of appearances.  However, she dislikes people.

Jacob Greenweiss has written seven books of poetry, the last of which, Visions, has been met with international acclaim for his frank portrayals of the metrosexual identity.  His first short story collection, Mothballs and Perfume, will be published this fall. He lives in Brooklyn.

Mason Franks the ill-chosen pseudonym of one of America’s finest young writers. His reportage has appeared in The Paris Review, among other journals. He lives in London and Brooklyn.

Thomas McGrath is a staff writer for three news publications. He does not ream, but has no metaphysical qualms with hard anal sex. When not in Brooklyn Heights, he spends much of his time molesting succulent cabbages and his students at a small New England liberal arts college.  He prefers brunettes, under nineteen, but has found ecstasy with a twenty-three year old blonde before. He believes extracurricular sex should not have any affect on a student’s grade. He neither flunks his conquests (a common film plot device) nor gives them As. He considers himself an enlightened, fair-minded professor and an excellent man. He enjoys cabbage soup and cole slaw.